IGNITING PASSION IN YOUR CUSTOMERS AND EMPLOYEES CAN CREATE A WINNING BUSINESS

Most diehard sports fans will tell you they “eat, sleep, and breathe” their teams, but that’s not something you usually hear a finance executive say about his or her job. But for Frank Gumienny, CFO of the Philadelphia Eagles, it would be an understatement.

Mr. Gumienny attends all events at Lincoln Financial Field, the team’s home stadium, from each concert, lacrosse, and soccer match to every Eagles game. He even goes so far as to visit tailgate parties in the parking lot. He explained this, saying customer service is at the very heart of what he does. “Game days are very special to me because it’s an opportunity to spend quality time with those who are tied very closely to the organization.” He continued, “The fans are our customers, and they all come for the same reason. I take advantage of this time and use it in a way where I can engage and connect with them before the festivities start.”

Mr. Gumienny has been with the NFL franchise for 19 seasons, four as CFO, and every single day, with everything he does, he tries to build the passion for his team. “We are creating and cultivating a culture where everyone is an Eagle. Not an Eagles fan, an Eagle.”

He made these remarks on “CFO Leadership in Managing Operations, Finance, and Risk…69,000 Customers at a Time!” at a Middle Market CFO Dinner, part of CFO Studio’s Executive Dinner Series, held recently at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia.

Those in attendance were surprised to learn that the CFO would be so involved with drumming up team spirit. “My whole job, this whole business, is about experience,” Mr. Gumienny said. “What we sell is passion and experience. I sell it, we all sell it.”

That resonated with Dominique Bernardo, CFO of Congreso de Latinos Unidos, a nonprofit organization that aims to strengthen Latino communities. “The personal touch of a CFO can make the difference in the experience of the consumer,” she said in an interview after the dinner. And she cautioned: “The CFO cannot afford to sit in the office and not be seen or not interact with staff and even customers.”

Mark Quinn, CFO of the Advertising Specialty Institute, a membership organization supporting the success of suppliers and distributors in the promotional products industry, said that he and his fellow CFOs need to recognize that they are in business to make their customers successful. “If you are committed to the success of your customers, it will be evident to them and your company will, in turn, be a success.”

This similarity with other businesses having been acknowledged, Mr. Gumienny made note of how unique his industry is: “Not many companies get their customers to show up on one day and share the same passion that others are showing,” he said. “They come wearing your colors, painting their faces, investing time and energy in what you do.” So part of the passion is already there, he said, but, “Our job is to continue that, to just keep fostering that passion, and above all, to show we care.”

Inside Out

To do that, he advised — and this can be done in any business — you start from within and work your way out. “Our staff members don’t just work for the organization, they are becoming it.” Mr. Gumienny added, “We do everything we can to instill that in the people we hire, making sure they come in with that attitude.” At the end of the day, “It’s just the mentality that every single one of us must have at all times and live out in every move we make.” To put it simply, he said, “Everyone inside the building has to feel the passion before anyone on the outside can feel it.”

This will only work, Mr. Gumienny pointed out, if employees are empowered. “I don’t believe that when you give people power, they abuse it. Most people want to do what’s right, and the right people are going to do the right things. If someone is going to abuse their power, you’ve got the wrong person.”

Mr. Gumienny continued, “When someone calls the stadium to see if they’re allowed to bring in an umbrella on game day, they are not talking to an operator, they are talking to the Eagles. So every staffer has to be empowered in the same way.”

Mr. Gumienny told the story of a stadium usher who went to his boss upon learning that a longtime season ticket member —whom he had seen at every home game for years — had died. The usher’s concern resulted in a memorial gesture for that fan’s loyalty to the team: “We removed the seat he had sat in and gave it to the family.” After all, said Mr. Gumienny, “that was not our seat, that was Grandpop’s seat.”

Mr. Gumienny said the usher was celebrated for knowing that this was something that should be brought to the attention of management, “which is impactful.” At the same time, the family will be fans forever. “We did this because it was the right thing to do, but the by-product is that they are fans for life. They’ll never forget it, and they’ll never let their kids forget it.”

William Curnan, CFO/COO of Advancing Opportunities, a provider of services and support for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities and their families, attended the dinner and in an interview afterward said he was genuinely impressed with the way the Eagles organization thinks of themselves and their fans as part of the team. “They build a home for them and they treat them like family, with respect and with pride to have them as fellow Eagles.”

Also in an interview, Curt Allen, Vice President and CFO of Subaru of America, made a comparison between his company and Mr. Gumienny’s Eagles. “The passion that the Eagles organization shows to their fans is what Subaru calls the ‘Love Promise.’ Subaru builds relationships with its employees, business partners, and customers by treating them the way we would want to be treated in order to create a culture with a sense of belonging.”

Close Encounters

This is something any business can do, Mr. Gumienny said in response to Mr. Curnan’s and Mr. Allen’s points: “Get your customers to feel that they are a part of the organization, to really be a part of it, and to get them on the inside, not just operating as a fringe player.”

Mr. Gumienny said generating devotion to the team is practically a mantra among his colleagues, “always on our minds as we go about our day-to-day,” and they take every chance they get to touch the fans and ignite the passion, be it on a grand scale or a very small one. “We might invite 500 season ticket members to the stadium to meet the new coach, or just one kid with autism to get an autograph from his favorite player.”

He said there are hundreds of opportunities to get tight with the fans and to bring them in closer to the Eagles, and “we go above and beyond at every turn, whenever we possibly can, to give them that ultimate connection to the team.”

This may sound minor, said Mr. Gumienny, but “guest services” at the stadium is now referred to as “fan services.” But that’s actually a big deal because “they really are fans, not guests, and we want them to feel at home when they come to a game.”

In an interview, Arlen Shenkman, CFO of SAP North America, the world’s largest enterprise application software company, expressed fascination over Mr. Gumienny’s varied and unique role: “his focus on the experience of the customer and how that experience weaves through everything the organization does, from finance to operations to game day.” He noted that every core operation within the organization relates to the customer experience. “It’s amazing to me that even the CFO is responsible for the quality of the experience a fan, a ‘customer,’ has on game day. But it makes sense.”

Mr. Gumienny said every single person who works for the Eagles is responsible for that experience, though he recognized that you can’t make all of the fans happy all of the time. “But if we continue to try to do what’s right, when we can get a win and make an impact, we definitely do it.” And that goes a long way, he added. “This kind of customer service really becomes who you are as a company. And we’re always mindful that each and every one of us within the organization has different powers to do that.”

The Business of Football

In addition to building the passion for the team and reinforcing a fan’s loyalty, “the goal of everyone on staff is to win,” he said, of what drives the organization and how it is ultimately perceived by its customers. “All decisions tie back to winning.”

He acknowledged that, “For most businesses the goal is to make money, but our primary goal is not to drive revenue and make money, it’s to win.” He pointed out that, in some ways, “You need to drive revenue and make money in order to win,” and that sometimes those two things are at odds. “Decisions to make you better on the field aren’t necessarily the same decisions that will make you money,” he said, citing an example: “We traded up to become the second pick of the draft, which comes with a much higher price tag than if you were 10th.”

In an interview, Anthony Conte, CFO of EPAM Systems, a provider of software product development services, commented on the business goals of Mr. Gumienny compared to those of his fellow CFOs. “At the core, we are all trying to accomplish the same thing, which is to make our companies the best in our respective industry. Obviously, we all go about that slightly differently, but that’s probably the one thing we have in common.”

Peter Miller, Executive Vice President and CFO of Binswanger Management Corporation, an international real estate firm, agreed: “As businesspeople, we are all trying to do one thing —more business.” He went on: “Even though the Eagles are a larger-than-life brand, it is still a business. And, like most of us, it fits the profile of a ‘big’ small business.”

In response to that, Mr. Gumienny said: “We’re not a business, but we’re almost a business.” He explained: “It’s the challenge that we’re faced with in dealing with the business side” of a sports franchise. “As CFO, you just have to balance conflicting needs and keep things moving in the right direction, which allows us to do whatever the owner and the head coach want, giving them every opportunity to win and be successful.”

Corey Smith, CFO of Dechert LLP, a global specialist law firm, attempted to sum up the discussion. “While Mr. Gumienny is in a unique industry and position, it’s clear that the role of an organization’s financial executive is ever evolving. CFOs becoming more involved outside the financial suite is critical and adds value to the organization, regardless of the industry or client base.”

Elaine Cheong, Senior Vice President and Senior Relationship Manager at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, and a CFO Studio Business Development Partner, echoed that. “We have observed over the years that the role of the CFO has evolved dramatically.” She added, “In the 25 years that I have been in the industry, CFOs are now acting very much like COOs. They’re no longer just the finance folks. The industry, and the world, really, is moving and changing very quickly.”

MORE THAN NUMBER CRUNCHING, CFOS TODAY ARE FOCUSED ON DRIVING THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE

One would expect CFOs from different industries to have very diverse opinions and concerns, but when customer service is the issue, “we all think alike,” says Brian Friedman, CFO of the New York Jets. “Whether your customers are 80,000 football fans or high net-worth individuals, at the end of the day, business is business and it’s all the same.”

Mr. Friedman spoke on “Delivering Customer Service 80,000 Fans at a Time — The CFO’s Role in Managing Operations, Finance, and Risk” at a World-Class Companies CFO Dinner, part of CFO Studio’s Executive Dinner Series, held recently at Park Avenue Winter, a well-known restaurant in New York City. In an interview, he said he found it “professionally validating” that everyone in the room felt the way he did about “the complexities of customer service, the challenges of dealing with high-value/ high-expectation customers,” and the CFO’s role in fulfilling customer expectations.

Mr. Friedman began the evening’s discussion by highlighting the scope of what customer service at the Jets entails: “On game day, we’ve got 80,000 fans in the seats [at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, NJ]. The population of the city of Trenton is 85,000.” In contrast, he noted that one participant at the CFO Studio event had as many as 300,000 customers, while others had far fewer customers. Yet, as CFOs, their goals are identical: “We all have to make sure that we collect more cash than we send out.”

And that is why the role of the CFO, he explained, has evolved to include a focus on customer service and not just accounting. “When all is said and done, we are helping to shape the company’s strategy, helping to determine the allocation of investments and resources on an annual basis, and looking for opportunities to grow the business.” He continued, “The only way to successfully do this is to understand where your revenue is coming from. Delivering great customer service, and knowing your customer, is the key component of that.”

CFOs gathered at the CFO Studio event agreed that the day-to-day challenges they face in their efforts to make each customer feel that he or she is the most important person in the world are the same, “regardless of industry or widget.”

George Neal, New York metro area Regional VP of Sales for California-based Tidemark, a private enterprise performance management company that is a CFO Studio Business Development Partner, said, “With a tighter economic market, all companies are focused on understanding the customer experience and retaining that customer.” He noted that it only makes sense that the role of “the CFO has morphed into a strategic advisor to the business, as opposed to simply a steward of the business.”

Leveraging Technology

Mr. Friedman moved the dinner conversation in another direction by describing his organization’s leveraging of technology to deal with a unique customer service matter — safely and smoothly getting tens of thousands of fans from the parking lot tailgate parties to their seats before kickoff. That led to the group’s discovering another common thread: “We all agreed that Big Data is an over-hyped term,” he said. “It’s not about Big Data as much as people make it out to be. It’s about actionable information.”

Mr. Friedman added, “We’re all looking for sources of information that will help us make … decisions that can drive better customer service.” Some people will call that Big Data, he said, but “none of us felt that Big Data is the appropriate term for it.”

The CFOs agreed that data may be helpful, but can be useless, while information is invaluable. “What are we trying to do with data?” Mr. Friedman asked. “When gathering data, as CFOs what actionable information or intelligence can we get, and what decisions are we trying to make?” His conclusion: “Until we can clearly state what those objectives are, getting reams of data doesn’t necessarily do anything for us.”

Coming from a different perspective, Mr. Neal said it was very surprising to him that “technology providers assume there is enough information available about Big Data, but clearly CFOs must better educate themselves as to the tangible ways they can harness and leverage it.”

In the end, both gentlemen, and the CFOs attending the dinner discussion, acknowledged that while such debates are indeed intellectually stimulating, it is quite nice, every so often, to be in a room where everyone is on the same page and singing the same CFO and customer service tune.

Fifteen CFOs, mostly from tax-exempt organizations, gathered at the Community FoodBank of New Jersey where they sorted and repacked food for distribution to more than 900,000 hungry people in New Jersey. What made this volunteer endeavor particularly impactful was that it was held two days before Thanksgiving. They came together as part of the CFO Studio Executive Dinner Series, and though this one was held in an unusual location, it featured excellent conversation and food for thought for CFOs of tax-exempt organizations — as well as an impressive dinner prepared by a culinary team that is part of the Community Kitchen, the FoodBank’s Food Service Training Academy.

Bob Barry, Chief Financial Officer of the Community FoodBank of NJ, led a tour of the facility, explaining all that goes into running such an expansive operation, and then hosted the dinner. Cheryl Marks Young, Chief Financial Officer of Easter Seals New Jersey, led a lively two-hour discussion of “The CFO as Chief Service Officer —Balancing Internal and External Customers, Partners, and Other Beneficiaries in Tax-exempt Organizations.”

“In our roles as CFOs, we are not just number crunchers, we are not just data crunchers,” said Ms. Marks Young in an interview. “We are human beings who serve others. The numbers and the data help us tell a story about the impact we make on the consumers we serve. That’s the story we have to get across.”

The group discussed all that goes into becoming a charity of choice. Mr. Barry gave specific examples from the Community FoodBank. He explained that Kathleen DiChiara, who started the organization by feeding the hungry out of the trunk of her car in 1975, instilled in the staff the fact that “no” is not an option.

Ms. Marks Young’s mantra is similar. “There is no room for failure in our roles because we need to continue to provide quality services to those most in need.” Since 2006, Ms. Marks Young has overseen all of the financial functions for Easter Seals New Jersey, ensuring its resources are properly allocated to achieve its long-term strategic goals.

Easter Seals New Jersey is a 501(c) (3) not-for-profit organization that since 1948 has enriched the lives of people living with disabilities and special needs, and those who care about them, by providing opportunities to live, learn, work, and play in their communities. Annually, nearly 9,000 people or families in New Jersey affected by developmental disabilities, including autism, physical disabilities, and mental illness, participate in programs designed to help them address life’s challenges and achieve their personal goals on the path toward independence.

Among Ms. Marks Young’s accomplishments is boosting funding for services by $22 million, enabling the organization to increase by nearly 20 percent the number of people with disabilities or special needs served. She has also served as a consultant and advisor to other Easter Seals affiliates across the nation by sharing her expertise in cash management, financial systems, and financial leadership.

“In my discussions, I use the numbers to tell the story about how what we do impacts those we serve and support,” she said. “It’s the lives touched that is most important. We all have state-specific and regulatory issues to contend with as well as business model issues. At the end of the day, it’s not really about all that. It’s about how we, in all of our individual businesses here, serve that end-consumer.”

Many in the group admitted not-for-profit work was not on their radar while they were in school. “My goal was to be the CFO of a Fortune 1000 company making money for shareholders,” said Mr. Barry. “Here I am in a not-for-profit for 30 years, working for shareholders who are the people we serve. We have to be there to help our respective organizations remain financially viable so we can continue serving those who are impacted by our mission.”

The participants agreed that running a not-for-profit can be a balancing act. A solid infrastructure is vital, as is balancing overhead costs. Transparency is key as well. Open communication with donors, the executive leadership team, staff, and board of directors is important, but there are many more populations that must be addressed.

Many in the room referred to the book Uncharitable: How Restraints on Nonprofits Undermine Their Potential, by Dan Pallotta, which examines the constraints put on not-for-profits by the public. A parallel theme in the book and at the CFO Studio Executive Dinner was that not-for-profits must be allowed to use the tools of commerce to thrive and accomplish their missions.

A successful Chief Service Officer doesn’t just talk the talk but walks the walk, said Ms. Marks Young. “Bob [Barry] shared a story about his staff coming in on a weekend to make sandwiches during Hurricane Sandy. That’s being of service internally to the staff as a role model and externally to the consumer we all service,” said Ms. Marks Young. “That’s what it is all about.”

She said it is important to focus on the population being ministered to. “It’s about how we serve our end-consumer or customer to live their best life, to have what it is they need, what brings value to them, and that holds true whether you are for profit or not for profit.”